Sunday, January 29, 2012

Green Day: Radio Daze (Live, 1992)

Green Day were polarizing. From the beginning the knock against them was their lack of punk boanfides; no breakneck tempos, no yelled vocals and the lyrics were not only comprehensible but they were clearly about...girls. But Lawrence Livermore and his Lookout Records label (more HERE) stood by the band, as did a lot of record buyers. When the band signed to a major label, the same people who'd derided them as being 'too pop' now called them 'Greed Day'. It's no wonder they abandoned the punk underground. What's more interesting is how much they carried the punk flag, coming around to an anti-establishment view not so far removed from that of the punk politicos they'd left behind.

Like a lot of folks, I wanted to hate Green Day but I ordered those first two singles from Blacklist mail-order back anyway back in 1990 and have refused to renounce them ever since. Yup, I own every Green Day album (well minus live/greatest hits/B-sides collections). I'm not ashamed of this fact, though it's taken me a few years to state it openly. And it started with those opening chords to "1,000 Hours". The lyrics were, as I'd been arned, kinda dippy but the tunes were so strong that they reminded of the really early Beatles (with a hefty does of Buzzcocks thrown in).

(Slightly dodgy footage but I think I'm in there somewhere.)

So here to unite us (maybe?) on the virtues of the band, is a radio show recorded live on May 28, 1992 in the WFMU studios, East Orange, NJ, which Mike Dirnt says is, "A real good Green Day bootleg".

Saw terrible bands that I've all but forgotten, except for a memory of a squat little bass player in a Boston Bruins jersey with a yellow do-rag who spat on a friend.

Anyhow, I remember being slightly annoyed that "Welcome to Paradise" was on Dookie. (And slightly surprised that "dooking" was slang for "fucking" at the time, according to some Ontarians I worked with the summer that album came out...) Other than that, I didn't have a problem with Green Day.

good to read what you said about green day,i remember when london calling came out everyone slagged the clash(now its considered a classix)same with raven by stranglers and black album the damned.considering punk was about thinking for yourself so many people will hate a band just because its the in thing to do,green day have done some amazing lps and i would rather my kids listen to them than the chart crap

One of the best "insults" (at least the guy who wrote it thought it was an insult) I've ever received was having my old band compared to a combination of Green Day and mid-90's Redd Kross. Oh do I hope we sounded that good!

It's funny, the first time Green Day really excited and impressed me was via this performance on the MTV Music Awards:

Never really cared for them, felt they were fed to the public, but I do have Dookie and listen to it once in a blue moon, Longview my favorite song of theirs by a mile, and I also think American Idiot was a brilliantly written record. That's my two cents!

I make no apology--I was looking forward to Green Day. Having grown up with How Much Is That Doggy in The Window? (arf! arf?, hearing some Green Day sounded pretty nice. But the link isn't working for me. Has Media Fire left us?

Right. It worked for me this time, too. Thanks for the post & comments. Fun video of GD. I liked it when someone's body sailed by into the crowd. I never experienced things like that in my formative years. Uh-uh.

Green Day is well ... Green Day. You mention the Beatles and Buzzcocks, no doubt big influences. But I like to make the case that without The Who you never get The Jam and without them both you never get Green Day. Saw them on the big tour a couple years back and even with all the theatrics they still turned in an absolutely rocking show that, in many ways, was as punk as anything ever could be.

Great bootleg. Haven't heard it in years, I remember (what would become) the Longview bass line during String Break.About Green Day influences: I've always thought Dry Ice sounded a lot like Husker Du (in a good way).

What a treat to see what would become the Longview bass line & intro taking shape in that string break & the video posted here by jeffen as early as 1992! Shame the video cut out as the Only Of You solo was kicking in. Still Aye to them covering that Crass song, although the maybe closest they came was their song Platypus.Ripped from Wiki: In 1989 due to Sweet Baby, Green Day changed their name from Sweet Children to Green Day for there to be no confusion before releasing their first EP 1,000 Hours. They made the right decision there!

Green Day is and probably always will be my favorite band. I still get the itch once in awhile to put the old records on and love 'em. I cant imagine any live show in my life topping the ones I saw by them in 95, 97, 2001 and so on. However the triple records "Uno", "Dos" and "Tre" are total shit. They totally pissed on their own legacy. The recordings are crappy and the songs are crappier. They should have just quit.

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